Netizen asks if he was wrong to refuse badminton teacher and his students to use public court because the netizen got there first

SINGAPORE: A netizen took to Reddit to ask if he had done wrong by initially refusing to allow a badminton teacher and his students to use a public court because the netizen and his friend got there first.

The Reddit user posted it in AITA (Am I The A**h**e) form on r/askSingapore on Apr 30, which has become a common way to find out if the public considers you to be in the wrong, especially when you don’t think so.

u/Beneficial-Stay-2793 wrote that he and his friend had gone to the outdoor court, and five minutes after they started playing, “a badminton teacher came along with his students as well as the parents. He told us that he wanted to use the court to teach his students Badminton. The parents have paid him for his services already.”

He said that he and his friend refused, arguing that the teacher should have reserved a court before the time he was scheduled to teach.

“By the way, this is not the first time I have went outdoors to play badminton. Almost every time I have to wait for the people there to finish before I take over the court,” he added.

The teacher, however, got angry. And while the post author “got even angrier,” he chose to give way for the sake of the “very young” students and their parents.

After telling the teacher he and his friend would play for 15 minutes more, he reminded the teacher that it is a public area, where it’s “first come first served”.

The post author wrote that the encounter left him feeling “kind of bad” and wondered if he had been “too hostile” to the teacher.

“Can redditors help me judge here? Just hope to have a second opinion,” he added.

Reddit users, however, were fully in the post author’s corner.

“He’s getting paid to teach badminton but somehow has no foresight to book a proper court? Sounds very entitled to think that others have to give up the court for his lessons,” was one much-upvoted comment.

“He got paid to teach he should arrange proper facilities to train his students,” wrote another.

“Should have told him this: Don’t make your problem my problem,” advised one Reddit user.

Others were critical of the teacher. Said one: “Get paid to bring students to a free badminton court where there might be people playing there? that’s some professionalism right there.”

/TISG

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